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Encoding Session Walkthrough
Introduction
Flix makes encoding video into the SWF format incredibly easy.
Here is a simple, step-by-step explanation of how to encode video
into SWF. To start, launch Flix and begin a new session. So that
we may explain all the session options, this example assumes that
your source media file has audio and video, and that you wish to
encode both into the SWF.
- Select Source Media
- Set Output Name
- Choose Outputs
- Enter Clip Information
- Set SWF Options
- Set Custom Variables
- Set Audio Output Options
- Choose Audio Intermediate Files
- Set Output Frame Options
- Set Output Video Options
- Click Encode!
Select Source Media
There are two ways to select your source media. You may either:
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select "Select Input" under the "Encoding" menu.
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on the "File" tab, click the "Browse…" button to the right
of the "Input:" text field.
Either method brings up the Open file dialog. Simply select your
file and click the "Open" button. (You may also manually enter your
file path into the input field, but be sure to get it exactly right!)
For a complete list of acceptable file types, please view Supported
Formats.
Set Output Name
Once you have chosen your input media, select a path and name for
your SWF output. You may either:
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select "Set output" under the "Encoding" menu.
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under the "File" tab, click the "Browse…" button to the right
of the "Output:" text field.
Either method brings up the Save As dialog box. You may navigate
to any directory and then choose a name. (As with the "Input:" field,
you may also manually enter your file path into the output field,
but again be sure to get it exactly right!)
Choose Outputs
You may choose whether to export audio and/or video in your SWF,
by checking the appropriate boxes. Of course, if your source is
audio-only, you will not be able to export video, and if your source
has no audio track, only the "Export Video" option will be available.
If you wish to deploy your SWF in a web page, you may select "Export
HTML", which will produce an HTML file with the OBJECT EMBED tags
necessary to embed the SWF in a web page. Simply copy that code
into any HTML document.
Enter Clip Information
You may embed three items of clip information, including the title
and author. These are embedded in the SWF to identify your clip,
and can be accessed from a larger Flash movie (such as a media player)
like any variable.
Here you may also choose to make your video link to a URL, by checking
the "Link" box and entering a URL and a browser target (no entry
for browser target means that the link will open in the same browser
window).
Set SWF Options
If you are loading or importing your video into a larger Flash
movie, the SWF framerate of your video must be the same as the framerate
of your larger Flash movie. Otherwise, if your media has audio,
your larger site will play back at the speed of the media file;
if your media is video-only, your media file will play back at the
speed of the website.
Your SWF framerate must be at least equal to, or a multiple of,
your video framerate (which you specify under the Video tab).
There are three additional options relating to the SWF file itself.
First, you may opt to protect your SWF from import into Flash. People
who attempt to import a protected SWF into Flash will receive an
error and be unable to do so. Do not do this if you intend to import
your video into a larger project within Flash. Protected SWFs may
be used in larger Flash movies with the Load Movie function.
Second, you may choose to have your SWF loop. When checked, this
option will cause your media to loop automatically and infinitely.
Otherwise, your SWF file will play once and stop on the final frame.
Third, you may select "Unload movie at end". If you check this box,
your SWF movie will automatically unload once it has finished playing.
This will return all the RAM the SWF Player has used back to the
system. It will also mean that the unloaded media file must be re-loaded
prior to being viewed again.
Set Custom Variables
If you wish your media file to hold additional custom variables
(to denote additional clip information, or to set variables to interact
with larger Flash movies), you may do so by entering a variable
name and its value, and selecting "add". This will add the new variable
to the list in the window. Once a variable is in the list, you may
update or delete it by selecting the variable and clicking the appropriate
button.
For example, you may create a variable encode_date and set it to
2001_03_15. Once your clip is encoded, this variable would then
have the full name _level0:encode_date. If you loaded your movie
into a larger Flash movie, into a movie clip called video on the
top level of that movie, level0/video:encode_date would equal the
string, 2001_03_15.
Variable names and values in Flash may contain letter, numbers and
underscores (_). They may not contain punctuation or other special
characters. All spaces in variable names and values are automatically
removed by Flix.
Set Audio Output Options
Now that your SWF options are set, click the "Audio" tab. On the
upper let of this window you will notice the "Input Audio Properties",
which describe the features of your source audio.
Immediately to the right, you will notice the "Output audio options",
where you may choose the way your source audio is encoded. There
are three audio options, which you can set: sampling rate, bitrate,
and stereo/mono.
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Sampling Rate: This is the frequency at which the audio is
encoded. This is measured in Hertz (Hz). The higher the frequency,
the less "tinny" your audio will sound, and the larger your
filesize will be.
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Bitrate: This value reflects the amount of information used
to store the audio in the output SWF. This is measured in kilobits
(1000 bits = 125 bytes) per second (Kbps). Higher bitrates lead
to higher quality audio AND larger SWF filesize, but do not
significantly affect RAM consumption on the viewer's machine.
128 Kbps MP3 audio is generally considered to be equivalent
to CD audio.
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Stereo: SWF can support stereo audio. If you wish your audio
to be encoded in stereo (assuming the source is stereo), select
this box. This setting does affect file size. At lower bitrates,
a setting of mono will result in better quality audio.
Choose Audio Intermediate
Files
On the bottom half of the Audio tab, you will see the "Output audio
export options," where you may choose whether to save a WAV and/or
MP3 of the audio track along with your SWF output, by checking the
appropriate box.
By checking either box, the output file name is the same as the
output SWF, such as my_movie.WAV. To save the audio to a custom
name, select "Filename" and click "Browse" to select the directory
and the desired filename.
Please note that choosing either ".WAV" or ".MP3" does not remove
the audio track from your SWF. You might want to save a WAV, for
example, in order to import the audio into Macromedia Flash (Flash
will not import the soundtrack of your Flix-generated SWF because
Flash can not import MP3 even in SWFs).
Set Output Frame Options
Now that your audio options are selected, click the "Video" tab.
On the upper left of this tab you will notice the "Input video properties",
which describe the unalterable characteristics of your source video.
Immediately below, under the heading "Output frame options", there
are two settings:
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Average image quality: This value, set on a scale of whole
numbers from one to 100, reflects the image quality for each
frame. You may think of this like saving a .jpeg. The higher
the number, the better the image quality, and the larger the
file size. This setting does not significantly affect client-side
RAM consumption. You may have to experiment to find your ideal
setting. We recommend keeping your average image quality below
80%.
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Image smoothing: This setting is either on (checked) or off.
This feature can be used to compensate for some of the pixelation
characteristic of photographic image compression. This feature
can be more useful at lower image quality percentages (when
pixelation increases) or if you apply "Custom SWF dimensions"
and stretch your image (see next step).
Set Output Video Options
In the "Video" tab you may also set your "Output video options",
by choosing your video dimensions, framerate, and, if you choose,
a forced-constant bitrate.
You may use the image dimensions used with the presets (in the File
tab), or you can enter a whole number between 1-500, or you may
elect to use your source video dimensions by checking the "Use source
dimensions" box.
Directly underneath, you will notice the "SWF movie dimensions".
By default, "Use custom SWF dimensions" is unchecked, which means
that the SWF is output at the same image dimensions as you have
set for your video. However, you may choose to enlarge your SWF
dimensions without enlarging your actual image dimensions. For example,
let's say your source dimensions are 100x100 and you choose to maintain
your original dimensions in your output. That means that each frame
is a 100x100 pixel image. Now, let's say that you check "Use custom
SWF dimensions" and enter 125 for both width and height. This means
that your output still only has the information (and filesize) for
a 100x100 pixel image, but it is blowing up each frame by 25% to
125x125 pixels. In this way, you can enlarge your output image without
increasing filesize at all, or significantly affecting client-side
RAM consumption. The custom SWF dimensions can be a whole number
between 20 and 2000.
Next you must specify the video framerate. This reflects the number
of different video frames displayed per second in your output (which
is not your SWF framerate). The higher the video framerate, the
smoother the video, and the larger the file size. Also, the higher
the framerate, the more RAM the Flash player will consume on the
client-side. For this reason, if you are encoding video for higher
bitrates, we recommend boosting average image quality and custom
SWF dimensions, over significant increases in video framerate. The
video frame rate can be a whole number between 1 and 30.
The final option in this panel is the "Maximum bitrate" box. The
frame and video options directly affect the output file size, but
they do not determine a fixed filesize -- that depends on the individual
media file. By selecting this box, Flix will drop frame image quality
in order to guarantee a maximum bitrate. The maximum bitrate can
be a whole number between 8 and 512.
Click Encode!
Click the button labeled "Encode" on the File tab, or the toolbar
button . Flix will begin encoding your media. A dialog box will
pop up with a progress indicator, encoding statistics, and three
options:
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Play when finished: Checking this box causes the newly created
SWF media file to play as soon as it finishes encoding
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Beep when finished: Checking this box causes Flix to sound
a beep (the specific sound is determined by your Windows System
Sound settings) when the encoding process is complete. This
is useful if you wish to do something else during the encoding.
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Close window when finished: Checking this box causes this dialog
box to close immediately upon the completion of encoding.
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